


Percolate

by cwb, Ellipsical



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - College/University, Barista John Watson, Baristas, Boys In Love, Case Fic, Coffee Shops, Falling In Love, Flirting, Insecure Sherlock Holmes, M/M, Misunderstandings, Mutual Pining, Patient John, Pining John Watson, Pining Sherlock Holmes, Romance, Slow Burn, Unilock
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-12
Updated: 2019-07-18
Packaged: 2019-10-26 23:19:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 12,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17755400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cwb/pseuds/cwb, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ellipsical/pseuds/Ellipsical
Summary: This work is a collaboration between Ellipsical and cwb and promises to be a lighthearted, fun romcom with strong themes of mutual pining, awkward flirting, and panicked impulsiveness. POV will alternate between Sherlock and John; cwb writes Sherlock, Ellipsical writes John.





	1. Chapter 1

Sherlock shouldered the glass door open and sighed at the long queue in front of him. He thought about retreating and finding another coffee shop, or forgoing the caffeine altogether, but figured it would be the same scene in all the campus coffee shops this morning. Of all the days for his coffee maker to go on the blink, the first day of exams was the least opportune.

More people joined the queue behind him and he slowly shuffled forward, using his overloaded backpack as a shield to keep the person behind him from getting too close. He tugged down the cuffs of his lilac broadcloth shirt and smoothed the fabric into the waist of his slim-cut, dark denim jeans, then rested his hands on his hips and jutted his elbows out as a further defence mechanism against the bumbling people around him.

As he waited he scanned the space around him. He hadn’t been here before, and he found the simple black and white decor pleasing in the same way a pared down, straightforward chemical equation was pleasing. No nonsense, clean, practical. If it wasn’t such a busy time of day and if he weren’t facing into his graduate-level Protein Biophysics exam he would consider sitting at one of the high tops near the window to review his notes. Not that he needed to review his notes from an academic standpoint, but reviewing the familiar did, at times, help his brain find and maintain focus.

Students and the occasional professor jostled in the tight space around him, hovering near the tables in hopes of grabbing one, calling out to friends in passing, sloshing coffee on open notebooks and laptops. He shuddered. Complete chaos, and not the good kind, not the kind that could be studied and unravelled and put back together like a neat solution to a tricky problem. Sherlock half-heartedly distracted himself by deducing the idiots around him. _Stayed up all night studying, is going to fail anyway; having an affair with her professor, will probably fail anyway; cheating on his girlfriend with his first cousin, failing all ‘round._

As the queue progressed towards the counter, Sherlock began a leisurely observation of the people working behind it. The employees wore neat, black aprons with a white, stylised logo centred at the top, although why a coffee shop would have an Erlenmeyer flask as a logo was beyond him. He could only see two of the three baristas from where he stood, and the two he could see were partially obscured by a massive silver and chrome espresso machine, stacks of black and white porcelain cups and saucers, and a gaggle of customers waiting to pick up their orders. Snippets of conversation and laughter indicated that the three knew each other and were having a good time despite the early morning crush.

He took another slow step forward and peered around the side of the ferret-owning poetry major standing in front of him. _Two women, one man, all graduate students. One literature Ph.D. candidate, one forensic science major (interesting!), one … unknown. One unhappily single, one in a boring monogamous relationship, one … unknown. One Irish Wolfhound owner, one multiple tabby cats owner, one … unknown._ Sherlock pushed an errant curl off his forehead and growled under his breath. Not being able to see the third barista was seriously inhibiting his ability to deduce the man. Well, if the high-pitch giggle was anything to go on, he was an idiot like the rest of them.

Sherlock shuffled forwards.

He checked his phone for emails. _Mycroft, delete; Mummy, delete; Mrs Hudson wishing him good luck, save for later._

He shuffled.

He was still swiping through his phone when he heard someone say, “Welcome to Percolate, what can I get you this morning?”

Finally. Sherlock looked up, mouth open to order, and blinked.

The ambient chaos retreated, replaced by the shush of Sherlock’s whispered thoughts. Observations pulsed, molasses-slow, molasses-sweet, filling the space between his heartbeats. It took an age for him to process what would usually take a few scant seconds, and then he couldn’t make sense of the information. _Gold, blue, pink; shoulders, chest, waist in perfect Vitruvian proportions, a genetic miracle; green and blue plaid, plaid is good, is it good? Why is it good?; licks lips; smile tilts up on left side, licks lips again, pointed tongue tip; leaning forward, elbows on the counter, licking lips, pink lips, pink. Pink, creamy amaranth, lavender with tinges of lemonade, wait what? Eyelashes, swooping over cobalt, royal, Egyptian. Blue. So blue. All the blue._

“–help you?”

Sherlock twitched, his awareness trudging up from an underwater-like stillness. “Hello.”

“Hi.” The man in front of him leaned closer, a conspiratorial posture. He smirk-smiled and Sherlock watched as that so-blue gaze floated over Sherlock’s curls, his face, his neck. “What can I do for you?”

 _Oh, so much_. What? Where did that come from?

Behind him, a proper idiot loudly cleared his throat and bumped into Sherlock’s backpack.

“Coffee. I’d like coffee.”

“Yeah, this is a good place for that. Tell me more. French press? Beehouse drip? The moka pot is really popular. Or maybe an espresso drink, something frothy? And what size? Small perk or large perk?”

Sherlock recalled that there was a menu above the counter, a menu with drinks displayed pictorially in neat columns, pots and presses, siphons and beakers, a menu of crisp black design on a white background, but he could not seem to rotate his eyeballs in their sockets away from the beautiful male specimen in front of him and into the vicinity of said menu.

“Black. Two sugars. Big.”

The man was staring at Sherlock’s mouth. Did he have something on his face? He smeared two fingertips over his lower lip but didn’t feel anything there, and now the man was staring even harder.

“Big?”

“Large? A large coffee.”

“For here or to go?”

Sherlock’s mind spun. Was ordering coffee always such a complicated process that involved such complex communication dynamics, or was something wrong with him? Perhaps he was feverish. He reached up and pressed the back of his hand to his cheek. He felt a bit flushed, a bit clammy. He swallowed. “To go.”

The barista pecked at his cash register with one finger, the tip of his blush-pink tongue flicking out. “Okay. What’s your name?”

“My name?”

“For the order.”

“Sherlock.”

“Hi, Sherlock, I’m John.”

“Oh.” _Oh?_

John turned away from the counter and picked up a curvy glass contraption, poured Sherlock’s coffee into a large black and white to-go cup, snapped a lid on top, and turned back to hand it to him. “This is French press, I think you’ll like it. I put the sugar in already. That’ll be £2.95.”

Sherlock fished around in his pocket for some money and hoped that what he pushed across the counter was sufficient. He was still having a hard time rotating his eyeballs away from barista-John.

Their fingers brushed as John reached out for the coins, and then there was nothing left to say, no more scientifically-superior coffee to order, and Sherlock had the nagging thought that there was something he was supposed to be doing, something, somewhere else. He shifted his backpack higher on his shoulder, nodded at John, and turned away.

The coffee cup was pleasantly warm and grounding in his hand as he exited the coffee shop. Once outside he took an approving sip of the admittedly delicious coffee, checked the time, and started walking toward the chemistry building. He hadn’t gone very far when he heard a voice behind him call out his name.

“Sherlock!”

He pivoted on his heel and saw barista-John jogging up to him, his long black barista apron flapping against what appeared to be extremely sturdy thighs.

“John?”

“Yeah, um, I was supposed to give this to you when you ordered.” He held out a business card with a row of tiny beakers printed along the bottom. One of them had an X punched through it. Above the business card was John’s forearm, beautifully rounded under the rolled-up sleeve of his blue and green plaid shirt.

“A business card?”

“A perk punch card. You know, to get you to come back.”

“To come back?”

“To Percolate. After you buy ten drinks, you get one for free. It’s a … Percolate perk, or at least that’s what I’m supposed to say. It’s basically a loyalty card.”

“Oh. I see. I have a coffee maker at home but it seems to be broken.”

“That’s a shame. You definitely need to come back, then.”

“Yes. Thank you for the perk card.”

“You’re welcome. Just, you know, doing my job. And I do it every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday morning.”

Sherlock slipped the card into his back pocket and bit his bottom lip. Today was Monday. Certainly, his coffee machine would still be broken on Wednesday. He was sure of it.


	2. Chapter 2

John pulled the silver pitcher down the length of the steam wand, gently aerating the milk. The initial banshee screech was subsumed by a rich gurgling, all of which lasted eight seconds as the foam began to rise and then John set it, carefully, back onto the grate of the drip tray while he pulled the espresso shots.

Percolate gleamed around him, chrome and black and white. The industrial style lamps that hung from the ceiling cast a warm glow over the raw brick walls and the wood tabletops as a dark grey sky glowered outside the floor to ceiling windows that faced the street. Outside, people walked by beneath umbrellas, a late spring rainstorm making them hurry along the wet pavement.

His wrist ached a bit as he waited for the glasses to fill and for the crema to settle in a thin caramel gold layer on the top of the velvet black coffee. It was sore from four hours of tamping the grounds, wrenching the portafilter into place, holding the pitchers full of milk, and the resistance of the mocha pump against his palm. He was at the end of his shift, thankfully. Slipping his mobile from his apron pocket with his left hand to confirm this he simultaneously set the pitcher down on the counter and wiped down the steam wand with a sanitised towel with his right.

Thumbing away the texts from friends waiting for him on the screen he put his phone away and poured the two now full shot glasses into the white ceramic mug sitting before him on the stainless steel counter, then filled the cup to the brim with thick, pillowy foam. He called out the name on the ticket: Audrey, and smiled at the pretty brown-skinned, brown-eyed girl who picked it up.

“You’re a shameless flirt, John Watson,” Molly Hooper murmured, coming up beside him to start brewing a Vietnamese coffee for a Vincent. Nudging John aside with her elbow she pulled a prepared pitcher of sweetened condensed milk out of the fridge beneath the bar and poured a little into the bottom of a clear tumbler style glass. Setting the special steel filter on top of the glass, she ground out two single servings of espresso and dumped it into the bottom.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” John said, pulling the next ticket from the printer and dumping the used grounds from the portafilter into the container to his right.

“You’re an equal opportunity flirt, I’ll give you that,” Molly said as John called goodbye to Omar, a regular (quad cap, very dry), over the top of the espresso machine. Molly smirked at Omar’s back as he retreated towards the doors to duck out into the rain, pouring a short stream of boiling water over the grounds to steep, and setting a timer for five minutes before turning to face John.

“I’m twenty-six, Molls. Some would call that the prime of life,” John said, grinding espresso for an Americano.  

Molly waited for the grinder to stop growling before she said, “And to what end? Doesn’t hooking up ever get old?”

“It’s not like I’m hooking up every week. We’re both in med school up to our eyeballs, if you haven’t noticed.”

“At least you don’t have Dr. Kirchner on your back every moment of the day,” Molly muttered, pulling the next ticket for a Chemex pour-over. Molly pulled out a fresh paper filter and pulled apart the four leaves of the paper circle, folding them in half to fit into the top of the Chemex pot, making sure that the side with three pieces lay against the pour spout.

“That reminds me, what’d Bea say to you this morning? Did she write you up or…?” John asked, jerking his chin over Molly’s shoulder towards where their boss, Beatrice, stood, trying to talk a customer into trying a Turkish coffee. Molly had been late again that morning. John had stood outside the shop at 5am for thirty minutes, collecting a small gathering of annoyed customers as it drew closer and closer to their scheduled opening, before she arrived, flustered and embarrassed, to use her supervisor keys to open the store. John regretted asking the question immediately as Molly’s eyes welled. She shook her head, blinking quickly to dispel the tears.

“I’m supposed to talk to her after my shift.” The timer went off and Molly turned back to finish the Vietnamese. She filled the steel container with hot water and slowly the brew began to drip out into the glass below, dotting the top of the condensed milk with brown speckles. “I need to keep this job. I can’t get fired again.”

“You want to talk about it?” John asked, turning back to Molly after handing off the Americano. John knew better than anyone how stressful med school was. And having a job on top of it only made it more difficult. Molly and John both came from families who couldn’t afford tuition, let alone helping them to pay for room and board in London. John only worked three days a week, Molly was working five and trying to keep afloat in her clinical rotations at the same time. And Bea wasn’t exactly the most understanding when it came to managers. Percolate was one of London’s busiest coffee shops, perfectly situated to catch the university crush of students who needed caffeine to survive. As a result Percolate wasn’t hurting for applicants. If Molly couldn’t show up on time, Bea had made it clear that she would be out of a job.

“I just need her to give me one more chance.”

“Maybe going to bed at a reasonable hour might help? Instead of staying up until all hours studying? Or spending less time in the morgue, maybe?”

Molly scoffed as if this was a ridiculous proposition. “I just need to get through ‘til the end of term. I’ll set five alarms if I have to.” Molly finished off the Vietnamese with a quick stir and a scoop of ice cubes and Vincent came to collect it. Molly tucked her long brown hair behind her ear and avoided making eye contact as he thanked her warmly.

“Maybe instead of giving you my shoulder to cry on, I should be giving you flirting tips. Christ, Molly, that boy was making eyes at you and you didn’t even notice!” John chided her as she turned back to the Chemex and John began work on a lavender-vanilla latte.  

“He was not,” Molly said, automatically dismissive.

“How would you even know? You didn’t even acknowledge him at all.”

“Look, I don’t care, ok? I don’t care if he noticed me. I don’t care if he smiled. I’m not interested! I’ve got enough to bloody worry about, let alone stressing over how to get a boyfriend!” she exclaimed, clearly at her wits end. Her cheeks had blotched bright red and there was a bright sheen covering her eyes again. John held up his hands in defeat.

“I didn’t mean anything by it, Molls—“ he started to apologise, but just then Bea called out Molly’s name and motioned her over to the customer she had been talking to.

“Blergh,” Molly said, shoulders deflating. “She’ll be wanting me to make the Turkish for him. God forbid she actually learns how to brew any of this shite herself.”

“It’ll be the last one. It’s almost nine and then—“

Molly rolled her eyes. “And then I’m off to Kirchner, oh goody.”

“Molls.” John didn’t know what to say. She was being relentlessly negative today and John’s empathy skills proved insufficient in the face of it. It was odd for Molly, who was naturally cheerful, and was a mark of just how stressed out she was.

“Ok, enough, I’m done being sad. Let’s walk over together after, yeah?”

“Definitely. You want anything before I clock off?”

“Flat white, two—“

“Extra shots and three pumps of vanilla,” John finished for her, sighing fondly. “I don’t know why I ask, you never change your order.”

“Molly!” Bea’s shrill voice rang out above the cafe’s muffled din.

Molly winced.

“Good luck,” John said, as Molly hurried off.

Turning back to the bar John took the last ticket for a triple espresso. He could see Marcus in the back room clocking in on the computer. He would be relieving John in a minute and then he was finally free to go.

“Hello.”

John jumped a little, eyes swinging up, and up, to meet a pair of slate blue ones.

Him.

It was _him_.

Sherlock.

John felt the jolt of recognition as a surge of heat rushing down his spine. It made the hair on his arms stand on end and his skin tingle deliciously all over. John had wondered if he’d come back. He’d been wondering about it more than he liked to admit, thinking of the way the purple shirt had tinged his otherworldly eyes just the littlest bit violet, how his black hair had fallen across his forehead and the way he had pushed it back with his hand in frustration as if it happened all too often. He was tall and strange looking in a compelling way that made John want to keep watching him, that made John keep trying to figure out why he was so drawn to him. Why he had run out after him and given him the Perk card, why he made sure to tell him when he’d be working. Why his body reacted like a rocket on a launchpad the first time he’d laid eyes on him.

“Hey.” John couldn’t help it, he grinned.

The barest blush stained Sherlock’s razor sharp cheekbones, rosy pink beneath the intense grey-blue eyes.

“You’re trying the espresso today. Coffee pot still broken?” John asked, immensely pleased that Sherlock had forgone his first order (Big, black, two sugars) to chat John up at the bar. It was a good sign. In fact it was a _very_ good sign that John might not be the only one whose interest was piqued.

“Yes, well, I realised I don’t know much about coffee and should try something new.” 

“Smart lad,” John said, smiling downwards as he prepared to pull Sherlock’s extra shot. "You could try the Moka pot next time," John suggested. "I think you'd like it." 

"All right," Sherlock said, in his deep plummy voice, entirely aware of John's ploy to get him to keep coming back. He shifted over to the handoff counter as the Chemex customer came to collect their cups and pot that Molly had called out just before joining Bea on the other side of the shop. John could see him better now. Could appreciate the crisp white button down pulled taut over a slim, hard chest. He was cold, John noticed, Sherlock’s nipples peaked against the tight white cotton. It looked a bit damp. A bit clingy.

“Get caught in the storm?” John asked, mouth dry, nodding his head towards the rain streaked windows.

“Forgot my brolly at home.”

“Sacrilege,” John teased. “What sort of Englishman are you?”

The faintest of smiles tugged at the man’s full lips and his searing eyes moved over John’s face. John shivered beneath their open scrutiny. Christ, he was intense. John found he liked it. More than liked it. He was intrigued and half turned on by it. It made his skin feel tight and warm and sent his nerves zinging, sensation singing through him.

In front of him the shot finished pulling and John poured it on top of the other two into the to-go cup and capped it with a lid. When he reached up to set it down on the counter, Sherlock stretched out his hand for it at the same time and their fingertips brushed.

John’s heart beat hard and fast, throbbing in his ears, in his wrists, in chest.

“Have another test today?” John asked, his voice thick, trying to work around his heart which now seemed caught in his throat, throbbing and throbbing and throbbing away.

Sherlock shook his head. A raindrop, caught in one of the dark coiled strands, dislodged and slid down the milk white column of Sherlock’s throat. John watched it cut down, clinging to the tendons which flexed and moved as Sherlock spoke, “No. Studying today. Test tomorrow.” The raindrop met the collar of his shirt and melted into the fabric. John blinked and found Sherlock wrapping his hand slightly self-consciously around the back of his neck, rubbing his palm over the wet path the raindrop had traveled.

Without giving himself time to talk himself out of it, John blurted out, “I’ll be here tonight.” Blood stung his cheeks and pounded in his ears. He was being obvious. Again. He forged on in spite of it. “Studying, I mean. It’s quiet after 9, if you—“

“Yes,” Sherlock said, quickly, nodding. “That sounds. Good. It sounds. Yes. Good.” His cheeks were flushed again and John wondered briefly if he pressed his fingers there if the skin would feel hot to the touch.

God, he was responsive.

Blushes were a thing John could work with. They were a tell, they revealed secrets, like beacons lighting the way. He felt suddenly, irrationally possessive of them, fiercely so, wanted all this boy’s blushes, wanted to make all those acres of white satiny looking skin turn pink, wanted to feel him grow hot with blood under his hands—fuck, fuck, fuck, he was getting a little ahead of himself. Breathe. Breathe. _Be normal, you prat_.

“Great,” John said, practically beaming up at him and not really caring anymore whether he was being too obvious or not. “That’s great. So I’ll see you tonight, then.”

Sherlock nodded, his eyes sliding over to Marcus who was now standing beside John, tying on his apron. Marcus raised his eyebrows at John who didn’t move to leave.

“Right. See you later.” Sherlock raised his espresso cup in farewell and John raised his hand. His skin felt like it might vibrate off, like his heart might jackhammer right out of his chest, like his whole body might float up through the stratosphere clean into space.

“You all right?” Marcus asked, pulling the next ticket from the machine and looking at him askance. “You look a bit…peaked.”

John smiled goofily, giddy, oxygen-drunk blood pumping through him, making him feel light as air. “I’m great. Just glad to be off.” His eyes followed Sherlock through the crowd, watching as he hunched his shoulders and lowered his chin into his chest as he walked out into the rain. John’s mind definitely did not wonder what that white shirt would look like soaking wet. It definitely did not. John shook his head, as if to clear it. “Hey, mind if I make a few drinks before I go?”

Marcus shrugged and let John work from one of the pair of espresso machines as he turned to prepare a French Press.

After, John stood outside the shop, leaning against the wall beneath the awning. It dripped occasionally in front of him as he sipped his coffee, the rain having tapered off. When his mobile vibrated in his pocket he had to set Molly’s cup down on the windowsill beside him to fish it out.

_This is going to take a while. You should go on ahead. Don’t wait for me._

John felt a sinking sensation in his stomach. That didn’t bode well for Molly’s chances.

  
_Ok. Let me know what happens. Ttyl_. John tapped out quickly before taking up the extra cup and heading off in the direction of school.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Espresso  
> 
> 
> Vietnamese Coffee  
> 
> 
> Chemex  
> 
> 
> Turkish  
> 


	3. Chapter 3

Sherlock fairly bounced up the steps to his flat, if bouncing was something he’d ever done before, shook the rain out of his hair, and dumped his backpack just inside the front door.

“Young man, you’re soaking wet!”

Sherlock spun on his heel, sending more water drops flying. “Oh! Mrs Hudson, I wasn’t expecting you to be here.”

Sherlock’s landlady clasped her hands in front of her and nodded toward the kitchen.

“Sorry, dear, I was just dropping off a new coffee maker. I saw the remains of the old one down on my bins and wanted to replace it as soon as I could. I know you have exams this week and Lord knows you’ll be up all hours studying. What on earth happened to the old one?”

Sherlock strode into the kitchen and glared at the brand new plastic and glass coffee maker sitting on the counter. “It fell.”

Mrs Hudson made a contemplative humming sound and joined him at the counter. “It looked like it fell several times. Well, this one is just a basic model, nothing fancy, but it should make a decent cup. How are your exams going, dear?”

Sherlock pulled his shoulders back and sighed. He’d deal with the new coffee maker later. “Quite well, thank you. I’m fairly certain I aced Protein Biophysics and I have Functional Nanomaterials tomorrow, but that’ll be a breeze as I’m fairly certain there will be a heavy emphasis on carbon nanotubes and quantum dots, and I could write dissertations on those topics in my sleep.”

Mrs Hudson smiled at him blankly and patted him on the shoulder. “That’s lovely, dear. Shall I bring up something to snack on later? You’ll need to keep your energy up.”

“No need, but thank you. I’ll be going out tonight.”

“The night before an exam?”

“I’ll be studying. Just not here.”

Mrs Hudson beaming knowingly at him. “Oh, Sherlock, that’s wonderful. Have you found a study group, or perhaps a new friend?”

Sherlock’s brain provided him with an image of John’s tongue darting out to wet his lower lip, and then the sensation of his warm fingers brushing against Sherlock’s as he passed him his espresso cup. He might not have agreed to study at Percolate if tomorrow’s exam weren’t going to be so easy, but the chance to sit at an actual table, hopefully a very small table, and spend time with John, had been intoxicatingly difficult to pass by.

“Um, something like that.”

Mrs Hudson nodded approvingly. “Well, I’ll leave you to it, then. Get out of those damp clothes and warm up, you’ll catch your death with your hair and clothing all wet like that.” She patted him on the arm again and made her way to the door. “And let’s be sure the new coffee maker doesn’t succumb to any falls, shall we?”

“Yes, yes, okay. Thank you, Mrs Hudson.”

“Think nothing of it.” She closed the door behind her but Sherlock waited until he heard the door to her own flat click shut before he went to the bathroom and began to strip out of his clothes.

He had a study date to prepare for. Well, a study something. It wasn’t really a date, was it? Did people make dates to study that were actual dates or were they simply prearranged times to meet at a neutral location, sit within proximity of each other, and review academic materials in advance of an exam?

He peeled his wet shirt off and let it fall to the floor, then his shoes, jeans, and socks. Kicking them into the corner, he turned on the taps in the tub, waited for the water to warm up, and turned the shower on. He did his best thinking in the shower, and he had an outfit to plan. What did one wear to a study date, he wondered as he tugged down his pants and stepped into the shower. He’d seen the way John’s eyes had lingered on his clingy white shirt that morning. And on his hair. And his neck. His mouth. Sherlock scrubbed the bar of soap over the goosebumps rising on his arms and chest despite the hot water flowing over him.

Had John been flirting with him or was he just one of those flirty-in-general people? Sherlock often had a hard time decoding the social behaviours of his peers, especially behaviours directed at him. More often than not smiling was actually leering; chatting was teasing; engagement of any kind was often bullying. John, though, John had seemed sincere. Sherlock watched streams of suds sluice down his legs and swirl around the drain. Extra conditioner, he thought absentmindedly. John had smiled, not leered. He had chatted and yes, he had teased, but in a way that made Sherlock’s face tingle with heat. He had not bullied.

On the other hand, Sherlock had watched John interact with his coworker, the one with the multiple tabby cats, and with his customers as Sherlock had inched his way forward in the queue that morning. John had smiled and chatted with everyone he interacted with, men and women. For all he knew, John studied with someone different every night. He frowned as he rinsed his hair of its second conditioning treatment, focusing again on whether or not studying was an academic or social endeavour for John.

Sherlock turned off the water and stepped out onto his bath mat, turbaned one towel around his head and wrapped another around his slim hips. He could do this. The academic part of this study date required no preparation. He’d simply bring his nanomaterials notes with him to Percolate, and a pencil. If John was intent on studying, or if things got awkward, he’d work on his diffraction peaks equations.

If, however, and this was the direction Sherlock’s hopes lay, if John intended the study date to be more social in nature, Sherlock would need to work on not shutting down completely in the face of John’s staggering beauty and flirtatious nature. He could just see himself now, blinking stupidly at the glints of gold in John’s hair, the curve of his biceps under his straining shirtsleeves, the lowering of his ridiculous blond eyelashes. He heard John’s giggle in his head and felt a warm blush spread over his chest. _Oh, for God’s sake. Pull it together, Holmes._

He needed a strategy. What would Mrs Hudson recommend? Sherlock finished drying off and tossed his towel onto the bed. She would suggest he follow John’s lead, to volley questions back to John, not monopolise the conversation, not make too many cruel or cynical deductions about those around them. Fine. He could do that. He was nothing if not a quick learner, and after his last, failed and painful attempt at dating he had tried his best to absorb the inherent lessons. Mrs Hudson had been stalwart during that time, and he sent her silent thanks through the floorboards.

He opened his armoire and pulled out a pair of tight-fitting jeans and a long-sleeved, light grey, sateen shirt. He could converse with the object of his affections without making a complete and utter arse of himself, he told himself as he dressed. He could master being socially appropriate.

But first, his hair.

Two hours later Sherlock and the gentle scent of his cologne wafted into Percolate to a scene of untold chaos and unexpected drama. The coffee shop was only half-full but the presence of two police officers and what appeared to be the shop’s irate owner made the space feel overcrowded and tense. One of the police officers, a slender woman with a shock of curly brown hair, was taking notes in a small notebook while a man with salt and pepper hair was trying to talk to John’s coworker, the young woman with all the cats.

And there was John, holding the shaking woman in his arms as she sobbed, smoothing one hand down her back as he brushed the hair off her wet face with the other.

Well.

Sherlock found an empty table near the window and pulled out a chair, hovering awkwardly as he tried to decide what to do. Should he sit and wait for John to realise he was there? Should he approach John? Should he leave? Perhaps police intervention wouldn’t set the right mood for a study date. Not really wanting to get too close to the sobbing woman in John’s arms, although he had quickly and thoroughly concluded that John’s arms looked like an excellent place to be, he thudded his satchel down on the floor and perched on the edge of the chair.

The woman was pushing back from John now and wiping her nose on the cuff of her sleeve. John rummaged in his pockets for a tissue and settled on a napkin from the dispenser on the counter. She blew her nose loudly and nodded at whatever he was saying to her, blew her nose again, and turned to the grey-haired officer that had been trying to talk with her.

Sherlock cleared his throat.

John looked over then and his face transformed from one of worry to one of pure beaming brightness. He walked over to Sherlock’s table, but instead of sitting down in the other chair he leaned in close to Sherlock, hands on his knees. Sherlock could see into the open vee of his dark blue shirt, could see the inner swell of a pectoral and a bit of light blond hair. He blinked and met John’s eye.

“I’m so glad you came. Listen, this is a bit of a mess here, but if you just give me a moment to get some things sorted out I’ll be right over, okay? I just want to be sure Molly will be okay. I’m sure this is all a misunderstanding.”

Sherlock looked up at John, at the sunny slip of hair hanging in his eyes, the sincere smile of his licked-wet lips, and nodded. It was all he could do, as his tongue seemed to have stuck itself to the roof of his mouth. He watched John walk back to the coffee counter where everyone else was gathered.

Sherlock pulled out his carbon nanotubes notes and doodled in the margins as he surreptitiously watched the police talk with Percolate’s owner, John, and the young woman, Molly. Eventually, the curly-haired officer escorted Molly into what must’ve been an office, and the grey-haired gent, obviously the higher ranking of the two, walked with John to the front door. Sherlock doodled more diligently but tilted his head toward the pair to hear what was being said.

“Alright, then, John. I’ve got your name and number and will call if we have more questions. Thanks for your cooperation, yeah?”

“No problem, Detective Inspector Lestrade. But really, this has got to be a misunderstanding. Molly would never—”

“It’s never the ones you’d expect, son, believe me,” the detective interjected. He looked tired, Sherlock thought, but kind. He gave John a brief pat on the shoulder and disappeared out the front door.

Sherlock looked back down at his doodles, swirly J and S letters intertwined on what appeared to be a cloud. Good God, what had he done? He quickly flipped the page over and began sketching the long, rambling molecular formula of arginine as John approached.

“Really sorry about that,” John said as he pulled out the seat adjacent to Sherlock and sprawled into it. His left knee was precariously close to Sherlock’s right thigh, jiggling with energy. John leaned in close and lowered his voice to a whisper. “It’s just crazy. I mean, one second I was waiting for you and chatting with Molly about tomorrow’s exam, and the next thing I knew the police were here and Bea was demanding Molly be arrested for embezzlement or some such nonsense.”

Sherlock leaned in, propping his elbows up on the table and bringing his head close to John’s. Physical closeness was imperative to a private conversation of this nature, was it not? “Do you think she did it?”

John frowned and shook his head. “Of course not. At first, she just kept saying, ‘Me? You’re talking about me?’ and then Bea pulled out a folder of what she said was evidence, and Molly just burst into tears. That’s pretty much when you came in. Now she’s in the office with one of the detectives but I can’t imagine it’s going to amount to anything.” John’s fingers were drumming on the table near Sherlock’s forearm. “She’s late a lot and Bea wrote her up this morning for tardiness, but that’s hardly a crime, right? But then she called her back in tonight and called the police after she got here. The police can’t arrest her without proof, but she’s been sacked.”

“Is Molly involved with the bookkeeping in any way?”

“Not that I know of. She opens and closes a lot, but the registers are all computerised and the cash goes into a locked safe in the office every night. Huh. I guess she does have access to that. But still, she would never.”

“How long have you known her?” Sherlock figured it was a safe enough question given the nature of the conversation they were having, but he secretly hoped John’s answer would indicate a very short acquaintanceship.

“Oh, about two years now?”

Sherlock’s upper lip twitched. “And you know her pretty well?”

“Yeah, I mean, as well as you can know anyone you work with and have in most of your classes, I guess. We’re pretty open with each other about tons of stuff. I know she has to work really hard to afford school and living expenses, but she’s one of the most honest, straightforward people I know. Why? You don’t think she could possibly have committed a crime, do you?” John was staring at Sherlock now, brow furrowed, chin tilted towards his chest as if he were about to head butt anyone who dared question Molly’s innocence.

It was not an unsexy look.

“No, I actually don’t think so. I don’t know her but I’ve observed her and what I’ve observed speaks to a person with a strong work ethic despite, or perhaps due to, many setbacks throughout her life, a caring attitude towards others, including animals, and a generosity that unfortunately sometimes defies common sense and self-preservation.”

John scooted forward on his seat, spreading his thighs to accommodate Sherlock’s very happy knee. “That’s exactly right,” he whispered rather aggressively. Sherlock’s spine began to melt just a bit at John’s fierce determination. “But how do you know those things about her? What do you mean, you’ve observed?”

Sherlock shrugged. “The two times I’ve come in so far, before tonight, she was working. The line was long and I was bored so I observed and deduced. It’s something I do. I look at details about people and then translate those tells into clues about them, what they do, who they are.” He swallowed. He’d said too much. This was when John was going to laugh at him, say, “Sure, mate, whatever,” and cut off all contact. He slid his notepaper towards him in a proactive manoeuvre, sure he’d be leaving the coffee shop soon.

“Wow. That’s incredible.”

“Excuse me?”

“That you can do that. It’s amazing.”

Sherlock looked over John’s left shoulder, then his right, as if a camera crew were about to bound into view and declare all of this a prank.

“Oh. You really think so?”

“Of course I do. Do me.”

Sherlock’s thighs tensed. “Do …”

“What do you observe about me?”

Sherlock pushed his shoulders back and took a deep breath. This was not the time to pontificate about amaranth lips and the sweep of golden lashes over all-the-blues. _Lock it down, Sherlock, lock it down._ “You’re from a middle-class family; you’re most likely here on a partial scholarship and are borrowing the rest. You want to be a doctor because someone close to you died unexpectedly when you were very young, most likely a grandparent. You’re outgoing and make friends easily but there are few people you would truly consider a close confidante. You like order and respond well to hierarchy but you don’t suffer fools and always root for the underdog. It’s likely you have a sibling with a drinking problem.”

John’s mouth fell open.

There, he had done it. He had gone too far. Sherlock looked down at the table and bit down hard on the inside of his lower lip. “I apologise. That was—”

“Brilliant. That was bloody brilliant.”

Sherlock risked a glance back up at John and saw nothing but admiration and awe on his face.

“How do you do that? How do you know about my grandfather, and about Harry?”

Sherlock was less comfortable describing the how than the what. The how involved having memorised every detail of John that he’d been able to see in their short encounters, the way he stood and talked and moved, his choice of words and his haircut and his clothing, the way he’d trained his muscles to move, the way he was leaning into Sherlock’s space and licking his lips and … no. There was no way to tell John how he knew what he knew without coming across like a completely obsessed, infatuated nutter.

Fortunately, he didn’t have to, because before he could begin to obfuscate his observational prowess, Molly came out of the office, her face blotchy and her eyes swollen, with the detective and shop owner right behind her. The detective directed a few more words in Molly’s direction before following the owner through a swinging door behind the counter and presumably out the back door. Molly hitched her handbag up on her shoulder and headed towards the front door, and John stood up and crossed the floor to meet her.

He led her back to their table and pulled out a chair for her, rubbing her shoulders as she sat down and grabbing another fistful of napkins and pressing them into her hands. “Molly, this is Sherlock. Sherlock, Molly.”

Molly nodded at Sherlock and gave him a weak smile before hiccoughing into her napkins.

“Are you okay?” John asked. “How’d it go?”

“I don’t know. It makes no sense! She’s accusing me of taking thousands, John, tens of thousands of pounds over the course of the past two years. I would never!”

“I know you wouldn’t, Molls, I know.”

“She has all these printouts that she says prove it but she wouldn’t let me see them. She gave them all to Detective Donovan and she said she’d give them to a financial forensics investigator and in the meantime, I’m out of a job and I’m not supposed to come here at all.” Molly wiped at her eyes and tucked a strand of mousy brown hair behind her ear. “Why would she do this to me? Why does she hate me so much?”

“I don’t know, but we’ll get to the bottom of it, I promise. Do you want me to walk you home? I can stay over if you want.”

Molly shook her head and took a deep breath. “No, it’s okay. You have study plans and I just want to be alone for a while. Bobbin, Wuggins, and Toby will take care of me.”

Sherlock raised an eyebrow.

“Her cats,” John explained before turning back to Molly.

Sherlock watched their exchange with a tinge of jealousy and guilt. Molly and John were obviously close and John’s natural caretaking tendencies were kicking into overdrive. Molly probably could use the escort home, but Sherlock selfishly wanted John to stay. They’d had almost no time together since he’d arrived, no time to get to know each other better, or for Sherlock to decipher how much of their meetup was to study, how much to date. And would John be able to stop worrying about Molly even after she left?

“I think I can help,” he said, surprising himself as well as the other two.

John wrapped his hand around one of Molly’s wrists but angled his body towards Sherlock. “Really?”

“John, do you have a key to Percolate?”

“No, only a few employees have one.”

“Can you get one?”

“I suppose so. Molly, who’s closing tonight?”

Molly glanced over at the coffee counter. “Jeremy, I think.”

“And the shop closes at 11:00 tonight?” Sherlock asked them.

John nodded, absentmindedly stroking his thumb over the top of Molly’s hand. Sherlock thought it was probably the luckiest hand he’d ever seen. Stupid hand.

“I need to get inside the office and take a look around when no one else is here, but I’m almost positive the owner of this shop is setting Molly up as a scapegoat for her own crime, perhaps embezzlement or money laundering.”

This time Molly’s mouth fell open.

“What the hell? Money laundering?” John shouted.

“Shhh!” Sherlock whispered.

John snapped his mouth shut and looked around at the shop, but none of the customers seemed to be paying them any attention. Most had their noses glued to their phones or were tapping away at tablets and laptops, and the baristas were taking care of a slow but steady stream of students in need of caffeination.

“Sorry. But seriously? That’s ridiculous.” John let go of Molly’s hand and ran his fingers through his hair, leaving an array of spiky bits sticking up. Sherlock wanted to smooth them back down and spike them back up. “Yeah, I can get you back in here after we close. Jeremy won’t care if I borrow his keys. It might be better to come back a few hours later, though, just to make sure no one sees us. Do you need Molly to come, too?”

Molly nibbled on her thumbnail and looked back and forth between them. “I don’t think I should come back, John. It wouldn’t look good at all if someone saw me here in the middle of the night.”

“She’s right,” Sherlock said, nodding hard enough to make the curls bounce on his forehead. “We don’t need her. For this. I mean, she should stay uninvolved until we know what’s really going on.”

“Alright, yeah, that makes sense.”

“Okay, then, I’m going to go home,” Molly said through another body-shuddering sigh. “You’ll let me know what happens? And you’ll be safe? Are you sure this is a good idea?”

John stood up and walked her to the door. “Sherlock’s mad smart, Molls, if he says he can figure this out, I believe him. Besides, if we get caught we can just act like this was a secret rendezvous.”

“At Percolate?” Molly giggled, a bit of her usual sunny disposition peeking through the tears.

“Stranger things have happened.” John winked, closed the door behind her, and came back to the table where Sherlock had shredded his nanomaterials notes into several hundred pieces.


	4. Chapter 4

John leaned against the brick wall and scrolled through Snapchat, waiting for Sherlock to arrive. He’d seen Molly home and then dropped by his flat to wait until their appointed meet up time, but he’d been too keyed up to actually study. The Percolate text thread was buzzing with speculation, and while John stayed quiet for Molly’s sake, he couldn’t help but read them all and mentally respond to each in his head. Most, to his relief, were on Molly’s side and outraged on her behalf.

When the time on his screen ticked to 12:05am John pushed away from the wall and scanned the empty street. No sign of Sherlock yet. John shifted from foot to foot, his nerves firing, Jeremy’s keys a burning weight in the pocket of his sage green bomber jacket.

 _It’ll be fine_ , John told himself, glancing over at Percolate’s dark exterior. _Sherlock’s clever. No, he’s brilliant. And he thinks he can clear Molly’s name. So it’s going to be fine. Breaking and entering is a small price to pay for gathering evidence against Bea. We’ll be in and out and no one will ever have to know._

“Hello.”

John jumped and whirled around, reaching out to grip Sherlock’s arm to steady himself when he realised who it was.

“Christ, you scared me,” John said, breathless and trying to laugh it off. “Where did you even come from?”

Sherlock’s eyebrows rose, his eyes skating between John’s eyes and the hand that clutched him. John swallowed and released him, smoothing out the wrinkles in the sleeve of Sherlock’s tweed blazer.

“You’re very tactile,” Sherlock said, his gaze following the sweep of John’s tongue as he ran it over his bottom lip.

“Er, I guess?” John said, running his hand through his hair, wondering if he should feel embarrassed or not. Sherlock nodded, as if he had just confirmed to himself something about John’s character.

“I took a cab. It dropped me.” Sherlock turned and pointed towards the end of the road. “Just there. I wasn’t trying to sneak up on you.”

“No, I didn’t mean—“ John said, feeling off balance. He reached out to touch Sherlock’s shoulder to reassure him, but stopped abruptly, letting his hand drop limply to his side. _Christ, did he touch people a lot? Did they not like it? Did John need to stop?_

“It’s all right, I didn’t mean you had to stop. I don’t mind.”

John’s cheeks stung with the force of his blush. _Could he read John’s mind?????_

“Ok. Um. Well, we should probably go in, yeah? Loitering on the street might look suspicious. Don’t want the neighbours calling the Met or anything. My Dad would kill me if I got an ASBO.” John huffed an awkward laugh and turned to the door, fumbling for the keys in his pocket. This bloke was throwing him off his game. _Get it together, Watson_.

“Are there cameras?” Sherlock asked, sliding in behind John and raking the corners and ceilings with his eyes. John locked the door behind him, tapped in Jeremy’s alarm code into the panel on the wall, and then turned and pointed them out.

“Yeah. There are three. One here in the lobby, one pointed at the cash registers, and one in the back room with eyes on the safe.”

“And is the footage kept on site or farmed out to a different company?” Sherlock asked, striding confidently across the room towards the front counter.

“I’m not sure. I could ask one of the supervisors. They might know.” John tapped out a quick message to Jeremy.

Sherlock studied the registers and the position of the camera before continuing on to the back room.

John followed in his wake, the manic energy radiating off Sherlock electric and invigorating. It was affecting John, making his own heart speed up in sympathy, adrenaline pumping through him in a buzzing current. Sherlock seemed like he was in his element, dissecting the room for details John couldn’t fathom, just like he’d done earlier, taking himself and Molly apart. He was dressed in tight jeans and a grey shirt, unbuttoned at the throat, with a charcoal-grey tweed blazer pulled on to ward against the chill. He wore a pair of smart leather boots and smelled deliciously posh. He was obviously public school with his cultured, dulcet tones, Harrow to John’s Cobbe Hill Secondary. And yet here he was, flirting John up, helping John’s friend, and telling John that he didn’t mind it when John touched him. That’s what was happening, right? John wasn’t going mad? No, definitely not.

Feeling a little steadier on the heels of this realisation John leaned into the doorway, hands in his pockets, watching as Sherlock tapped away at the computer on the back room desk. The pale blue glow illuminated his sharp features, making his dark hair gleam. 

“Can I help?” John asked after a bit, feeling superfluous.

“Doubtful,” Sherlock said, brutally honest, and instead of taking it personally, it made John grin. Sherlock glanced up at him as if to gauge John’s reaction and visibly relaxed when he saw John’s smile. “Sorry. It’s just going to take me a moment to check the books. Do you—“

“No, it’s all you. Can I maybe make you something to drink? We never turn the espresso machines off so they’re ready to go in the morning. You want a chai or something?”

Sherlock’s nose scrunched up in a way that John found ridiculously endearing. “No caffeine. Maybe, a hot chocolate? If it’s not too much trouble.”

“It’s the least I could do to say thank you for helping Molly out.” Sherlock was watching him and, God, the way those eyes bored into him, John felt his whole body flush with heat in response. “In fact, I don’t know if you’re busy this weekend, but I’d like to take you to dinner. My treat.”

“To thank me,” Sherlock said, as if to clarify John’s intent.

“Yeah. Sure. I appreciate it and I’d like to show you just how much,” John said, holding Sherlock’s intense eye contact without looking away. It was too hard to tell if Sherlock was blushing in the artificial light from the screen, but he blinked at John as if his brain had gone momentarily offline so John straightened, licked his lips, and called over his shoulder. “I’ll make sure to make it extra sweet, Mr. Three Sugars.”

John fetched a sanitised rag and then stood in front of the row of syrups, considering. White hot chocolate? Double fudge? Hazelnut? Cinnamon? Toffee? Salted caramel?

John had just settled for making Sherlock a salted toffee crunch when Sherlock came out of the room behind him and pulled himself up to sit on the counter as John began to steam the milk.

Sherlock leaned over and peered into the cup, his hands clasped between his knees. He looked out of place, perched there, a bit stiff, as if it was something he had seen someone do in a movie. John wondered, not for the first time, what Sherlock was like around other people. Were they put off by his ego and his slightly acerbic conversation style? John could see how it could come across as arrogant and condescending, but something instinctual told John that it was mostly just social awkwardness and a confidence in his intelligence that most other people would try and downplay. John liked the way Sherlock didn’t pretend to be something he wasn’t. He was singular. Unique. It intrigued John, made him want to know him better. Watching him sit there on the counter, obviously trying to engage with John and very obviously feeling awkward doing it, John wanted to make him feel more at ease.

“Done already?” John murmured, nudging the cup away from him so that it wouldn’t spoil the surprise.

“I’m downloading the data onto a memory stick so that I can study it at home.”

John’s mobile buzzed in his pocket and he slipped it out. “Jeremy says he thinks the footage from the security cameras gets stored in a cloud account that’s run by our alarm company. I’m not sure any of us would have access to it, unfortunately.”

“Mmm,” Sherlock hummed, looking smug and like he knew something John didn’t.

“What?” John asked, as the milk finished steaming.

“I figured out her password.”

“Who’s? Bea’s?” John asked, agog, immensely impressed with this feat. Sherlock nodded, his eyes bright. “Seriously?”

“People are idiots as a general rule, John. It took me three tries. I’m downloading the video footage as well.”

“You’re spectacular, you know that?” John said, utterly genuine and ardent in his praise. This time he watched as Sherlock turned a sweet rosy pink. Watched as his eyes turned downwards, black lashes fanned out across his cheeks. Watched as the corners of his mouth quirked up. Basking a bit. John’s voice softened and deepened in response to Sherlock's reaction, “Absolutely fantastic. You’re going to solve this thing, I just know it.”

“Don’t get too excited just yet,” Sherlock cautioned, looking back up at him. “This Bea woman might have done a good job covering her tracks. Molly’s not in the clear just yet.”

“Well, sure, of course,” John said, and although Sherlock was trying to temper his enthusiasm John found relief flooding through him. “But, I can’t help but feel hopeful.” He smiled, pouring the hot, creamy milk into the cup and swirling it until the syrups at the bottom melted. The scent of buttery, nutty, chocolatey goodness rose up and tickled John’s nose.

“That smells really, really good,” Sherlock said, leaning forward again as John topped it with a thick layer of whipped cream. When he straightened back up John could tell he was feeling more relaxed. The tension in his shoulders had dissolved and this time he reclined, leaning back on his hands. “Do you like working here? It seems stressful, especially with you reading medicine at the same time.”

“I do like it. It’s never dull,” John said, uncapping a container of broken up toffee shards. “It’s challenging in a different way than school is, which I like. It gives me a break from being inside my brain all the time and lets me use my body and mind in a more simple way. I’m always moving, always meeting new people, and coffee can be a science and an art if you put in the time.”

Sherlock cocked his head as if he were considering this. “You’re like a chemist of flavour. Mixing caffeine and sugar to satiate thirst and combat lethargy.”

John squinted one eye up at the ceiling. That wasn't quite it. Or, it was, but there was more to it.

“It’s about small pleasures, yeah? How else are you supposed to get through life? I get to make people’s days a little brighter, a little easier to bear. It breaks up the workday, provides people a place to go to talk, to study, to date. We’re the ones who start people’s days, we’re their afternoon tea, a cuppa with their kids after school, we’re the equivalent of the modern night cap, the after dinner espresso, the shared plate of biscuits and a pot of darjeeling when the cinema lets out. We’re dealing in mind-altering, mood-altering substances that happen to be legal. It makes people happy.”

“They're sense memories,” Sherlock said, nodding slowly. “You're tagging emotion to taste, to sound, to place. It cements it in people's sensory cortices and triggers a certain feeling associated with it. So really, to be more specific, you’re dealing in succour and redolent joy.”

It was John's turn to blush. He'd gotten carried away. What was he even nattering on about? Christ, this boy made him chatty. Here he was going on about tea and coffee as if it was, God know's what, and Sherlock had come up with some sophisticated, nuanced perception that was much more succinct and interesting than John's own description. “Go on then,” John said, slightly self-conscious, finishing the drink off with a sprinkle of sea salt on top of the toffee pieces. He capped the cup and passed it over. Sherlock raised it to his lips and took a sip, his eyes sliding closed in bliss as the decadent white chocolate toffee taste spread itself over his tongue. A deep, satisfied groan escaped Sherlock, seemingly involuntarily, rumbling deep in his chest and throat. It did things to John, that rock-rough sound, so explicitly sensual and uninhibited. John allowed his gaze to linger on him, touching where his fingers itched to draw: over those razor edge cheekbones and across the plush pink bow of his lips, trailing down the curve of his throat and dipping down into those soft inky curls that just begged to be mussed.

When Sherlock lowered the cup his lips were stained cherry red from the heat. John’s eyes caught there and held as Sherlock said, “It’s exactly like the sticky toffee pudding my grandmother made at Christmas.” Sherlock blinked, his pupils flooding the blue of his irises, eyes dilating in pure pleasure at the taste and the memory linked to it. “I take it back, you traffic in black magic. This is a very potent potion. It casts a veritable spell.”

“I know, right?” John agreed. “The toffee sauce we use is a proprietary secret of Bea’s family, apparently. Passed down through generations or some such.”

“Tell me about her,” Sherlock said, taking another sip.

“I don’t know much about her, to be honest.” John filled an espresso cup with whip cream and drizzled fudge sauce on it. Grabbing a spoon, he pulled himself up onto the counter beside Sherlock. The space was tight so they were pressed together all along one side, snugged close. “She’s got two sons, both grown. I think one runs a dry cleaners? The other’s a cook of some sort. At a chippy. She doesn’t seem to like them much. She’s always complaining about them being worthless gobshites.”

John dipped his spoon into the cup and then turned it upside down as it entered his mouth. Sherlock’s thigh flexed against his, their feet knocking against each other as Sherlock shifted.

“Husband?”

John sucked on his spoon, aware of Sherlock’s gaze on the side of his face, fervent and warm and attentive. Their elbows touched, arms brushing against each other as Sherlock raised his cup to his mouth and took a long drink. John’s skin prickled up, hyper aware of Sherlock’s body, the citrus, bergamot, sandalwood scent of Sherlock’s cologne making John want to lean in closer and breathe him in.

_Focus._

“They’re divorced I think? He owns the chippy. Her brother lives with her. She’s always having rows with him over the phone in the back room. Is any of that helpful?”

“Possibly. I’ll look into it further.”

“Can I do anything? I feel like you’re taking a lot on and it’s exam week and all…”

“Don’t worry about that. I could pass these exams without opening a book.”

“Ah, modest are we?” John knocked him with his elbow gently.

“No, just honest.” Sherlock’s brow drew down. Serious, as ever. Christ, he was adorable.

“Must be nice,” John said, licking another dollop of whipped cream off of his spoon.

“What?”

“Being a genius.”

Sherlock, finally twigging to the fact that John was teasing him, turned a rather urgent shade of crimson. “It has its advantages.”

John’s phone buzzed again, vibrating between their thighs. John fished it out. A text from Molly lit up the screen.

_Anything?_

“Poor girl,” John said, as he typed out a reply.

_Sherlock’s working on it. I’ll let you know once we have something. Get some sleep. It’s going to be ok._

Beside him Sherlock slid down off the counter. “I should go check on the download.”

John nodded and then went about tidying up the dishes and putting away the ingredients he’d used as Sherlock disappeared into the back room. It was strange to be inside Percolate at night. John was so used to the intensity of a morning rush, the voices raised in conversation, the music playing over the speakers, the sounds of the myriad appliances grinding, blending, steaming, brewing. Now it was mostly lit by the streetlamps cutting in from the street, except for the light John had turned on behind the bar. The air was chilled, every little sound echoing off the brick walls and the high ceiling, and the rich scent of coffee that normally pervaded the space was eerily absent. That transportive place that they had conjured together earlier, where magic was made and happiness brewed, it was glaringly missing, and it sent a slight shiver through John. Sherlock returned a few moments later, tucking a flash drive into the pocket of his jacket, and John shook it off. “Ready?” John asked, fingers on the light switch. Sherlock nodded and followed John back towards the front door, the light from outside guiding their way through the tables.

“I don’t know how I’m supposed to sleep tonight. Not after my first successful B and E,” John said, as he locked the door behind them.

“Actually,” Sherlock said, and John’s heart leapt, kicking hard against his ribs. _Was he going to invite John back to his?_ “There’s an Italian restaurant near here. Quite good. And open til all hours. You said dinner, sometime, but I’m not tired either and—“

John could tell he was a bit flustered, the stilted awkwardness returning, so he reached up and squeezed Sherlock’s shoulder. “That sounds perfect. I’m famished. I could murder a plate of fettuccini. Which way?”

Sherlock ducked his chin, obviously pleased, looking at John rather shyly through his lashes. “Right. Yes. Great. This way. It’s just through here.”

And so with heads turned down and collars turned up against the light drizzle, they made their way down an alley, striding through an almost deserted midnight circus, and into the tiny, candlelit space with Angelo’s scrawled across the awning.


	5. Chapter 5

Sherlock fought the urge to fidget with the cuffs of his blazer as they walked towards Angelo’s. How he had convinced John to join him for a midnight meal was beyond him but he wasn’t going to look a gift barista in the mouth. Actually, he had been looking at John’s mouth quite a bit and was now working hard to look straight ahead as they approached the restaurant.

“I’m glad we’re doing this,” John said. “I really do want to thank you for helping Molly. It’s good of you.”

Sherlock shrugged. “I like solving puzzles.” _And I like spending time with you_ , he thought. “Once I look at the data on the memory stick and figure out what Bea is hiding, it’ll be a win-win for all of us.”

“How long do you think it’ll take? I mean, no rush, of course. I’m sure you’re busy with studying and exams and all that.”

“I doubt it’ll take too long, actually. I promise to call you as soon as I know something.” They had reached the restaurant, and Sherlock pulled the door open and waved John inside.

Angelo’s was dimly lit with twinkling fairy lights strung up behind the bar and above the fireplace, bubbled glass pendants hanging at varying heights in the front window, and candles on each of the tables. The restaurant was mostly empty of diners that late at night, and Sherlock observed that the few tables that were occupied were taken by giddy, smitten couples, spontaneous types who hadn’t wanted the night to end. People like him, Sherlock thought, desperate to prolong contact.

A small group of people a little older than him and John, probably graduate students, were sat up at the bar, nursing glasses of wine and Italian beer, debating something energetically amongst themselves. Sherlock heard the words _Patroclus_ and _polemical_ and _eromenos._ Definitely graduate students, then. The restaurant had done well with the older students who wanted a less clubby scene in which to drink and nibble on plates of crostini and olives late into the night, and Sherlock was glad to see that business was going well.

Angelo, dressed in a tomato sauce stained apron, his hair valiantly combed over a bald spot that could not ever be fully covered, pushed through the swinging kitchen door, saw Sherlock, and threw his hands up in the air. He came to stand in front of them, looked back and forth between him and John several times, and grinned. Sherlock’s throat constricted in a brief moment of panic when he realized what was about to happen.

“Sherlock!” Angelo boomed. “It’s been too long my friend, too long!” He clapped Sherlock on the shoulder and held an arm out to his side, gesturing towards an intimate table at the front window, the best seat in the house. “So nice you brought your boyfriend in for a meal! Let me get another candle, a better candle, for the table. More romantic.” He then had the utter audacity to wink at them before disappearing behind a counter. Sherlock carefully studied the shine on his black leather boots. Next to him, John rocked back and forth on the heels of his navy blue and white converse, hands clasped behind his back, chin up.

They took their seats along the green leather banquettes, Sherlock with his back to the wall and a view of the rain-slick cobblestone street, John with his back to the window, their knees and feet bumping under the table as they shifted about and settled in. Sherlock wondered if he should’ve made that comment about how tactile John was. Even though he’d quickly clarified that he didn’t mind how often John touched him, John seemed to have become self-conscious about the habit and hadn’t done it as much since. And that, he thought, was a damn shame. Sherlock nudged his knee against John’s under the table, just to let him know that he truly didn’t mind. John didn’t move his knee away, and Sherlock’s thigh began to tingle.

Sherlock unfolded his white cloth napkin and set it on his lap, obsessively ruminating on Angelo calling John his boyfriend, pondering the way John had cleared his throat but not spoken, analyzing the likelihood that John would conclude that Sherlock _wanted_ Angelo to think John was his boyfriend, or that John thought Sherlock had _told_ Angelo that John was his boyfriend, wondering if John was embarrassed or confused or offended or if he even cared at all. He conjured up a flashing stop sign in his head, a little trick he’d learned to stop runaway, useless, spiralling thoughts like these.

When he looked up again John was scanning the menu, the newly placed, white taper candle bathing his face in rosy, warm-gold light. The candlelight flickered and danced off his hair, and Sherlock could just make out the tiny little flames reflecting back in the black of his eyes. He looked away before John caught him staring.

“So, how’s the seafood fettuccine here?” John asked, not looking up from the menu.

Sherlock was grateful to be on safe ground again. “Everything here is excellent. And, if there’s something you want that’s not on the menu, Angelo can probably make it.”

John looked up and grinned. “Sounds like you come here quite a lot.”

Sherlock tilted his head to the side and gave a short nod. “I helped Angelo out a couple of years ago. He likes to repay me with food.”

“That’s good. It’s good to have someone to feed you up.”

“Is it?”

John shrugged. “Of course. A friend with a restaurant. A girlfriend.” John looked up from his menu, held Sherlock’s gaze, blinked twice. “A boyfriend. Someone to, you know, look after you.”

Sherlock nibbled on a parmesan breadstick and considered John's words. He wasn’t especially attached to the idea of eating regular meals, but he could see the appeal if it meant someone, say, someone with rounded forearms and stocky thighs and all-the-blue eyes, was doing the looking after. Not that he needed looking after. Lord knew he had enough people poking their noses into his business. Interfering gits, all of them. He didn’t think John was a git, though, and he quite liked his nose.

“It sounds like you’ve had someone to feed you up, then?” Sherlock asked, not meeting John’s eye.

“Sure, at times, every now and then.” John shrugged and smiled as Angelo came back to the table to take their order. “I’ll have the seafood fettuccine, please. And we should get some wine, don’t you think?”

Sherlock nodded absentmindedly and frowned at his menu. Did John currently have someone to feed him up? He was ninety-eight percent positive that Molly wasn’t fulfilling that role, but his powers of observation were muddled by something he suspected were the stupid, pesky emotions flooding his system, the same emotions that made him break out in a cold sweat whenever he thought about John. Or looked at him. Or caught John looking at him.

“Sherlock?”

Sherlock blinked away from the menu and looked up at Angelo. “Sorry?”

“I was just saying that I have an excellent Pinot Grigio tonight. Shall I bring that and your regular?”

Sherlock flicked breadstick crumbs off the dark wood table and onto the floor. “I'll leave it in your capable hands, Angelo. Thank you.”

Angelo scribbled on his notepad, nudged the candle closer between them, and turned back towards the kitchen.

“What’s your regular?” John asked, and Sherlock, grateful for the opportunity to redirect his thoughts from the ways John might look after him, smiled and said, “Tortellini alla Panna. As far as I can tell, it’s all butter, cream, cheese, peas, and prosciutto. And the tortellini, of course.”

“Sounds delicious.” John was staring right at Sherlock and licking his lips again. Sherlock had a vision of cream smeared across those lips and briefly wondered what would happen if he had a coronary at the table.

He could not have a coronary. He needed to stay alive so he could learn more about John, spend more time with John, convince John that he wasn’t an absolute freak. He wanted to impress John. How would he go about impressing a man such as John? John, with his affable personality, his easy charm, his ability to warm to just about anyone? Sherlock figured he was about as close to the complete polar opposite of John as he could be: bristly, standoffish, cold. At least that’s what he’d been told the last time he’d let himself become close to someone, and he had no reason to doubt it.

 _Oh, Sherlock_ , he heard Mrs Hudson say. _That boy was an idiot if he didn’t appreciate what he had in you. Good riddance, that’s what I say. I never did like him, not really._

And Mycroft. _For goodness sake, Sherlock, you couldn’t have possibly imagined that your little dalliance was going to last? Better to learn these lessons now, brother mine. Caring is a disadvantage._

And Sherlock realized he wasn’t sure he wanted to risk that again. He wasn’t sure he could let someone in, go through the exhausting effort of vulnerability, to fall in love and then be decimated by another humiliating rejection.

He wanted John to like him, to flirt with him, to think he was normal. He wanted to bask in the glow of John’s attention, his heart upturned to the glow of companionship and affection and desire. He wanted to be a deserving recipient of those blue-eyed glances and smirky smiles and gentle knee bumps under a shared table. He wanted all of those things but he didn’t want to lose all of those things, and so he seesawed, up and down, back and forth, leaning in and tugging away.

Give in, back out; reach out, shut down; fall down, fly away.

And so, that’s why, when John tore a piece of crusty Italian bread in half, offered a piece to Sherlock, and said, “So do you, then? Have someone? A boyfriend?” Sherlock reached into the basket for his own piece of bread, took a deep breath, locked it all down, and said, “Yes, I do.”


End file.
